The steam from the tofu pudding stall hit you in the face, making your eyes water.
"Aunt Li, two bowls, with chili oil."
"Okay!"
Aunt Li responded and leaned closer to me, whispering, "Have you heard about Baldy Third's matter?"
I said I'd heard about it; it seems he's dead.
"Absolutely!"
Aunt Li tugged at her apron strap, and the soup ladle made a soft clattering sound as it hit the bucket.
"This morning, the community locksmith broke into his house, and guess what? He was lying face down on the living room floor, clutching a burnt paper banknote between his fingers, and his skin—"
At this point, she suddenly leaned closer, her breath carrying a tofu-like smell: "It's like I've been pinched by a line of little kids."
The chili oil had congealed into a scab-like consistency in the bowl. I stared at the ash from the stove on her apron as she continued talking.
"The forensic doctor said he had been dead for seven or eight hours, but when I was closing up shop yesterday at ten o'clock, I saw him wandering around the alley entrance with my own eyes."
Aunt Li unconsciously rubbed the apron strap with her thumb: "Wearing a red vest, holding a baby in her arms, taking two steps and stopping three, like she's comforting a child in her arms."
"I was thinking of going closer to ask him, but when he turned around, half of a paper-mache baby's foot was sticking out from under the swaddling clothes, with fresh gold paint still stuck to the toes of the shoes. Can you believe how scary that was!"
I stared at the chili oil in the bowl and asked, "You really saw him?"
"Of course!"
Aunt Li frowned and continued to ramble, "I really saw a ghost! And what's even stranger is that I heard the wardrobe doors in Bald Old Third's room were all open, with seven red vests hanging there, and each vest had a yellow talisman with a person's name and birth date stuffed in its pocket."
"I heard that this birth date and time belong to his daughter, Xiuxiu."
My heart skipped a beat.
I do know that. It is said that paper figures made from the birth dates and times of relatives are used to borrow the yang energy to compensate for the yin energy, thus transferring the yin debt to the living.
The seven red vests that Bald Old Third displayed before his death were probably meant to have Xiuxiu shield him from the King of Hell's summons.
Is he so insane that he would even harm his own daughter?
Just as I was pondering this, a shoe vendor who lived diagonally opposite the paper craft shop came over to buy tofu pudding.
Upon hearing this, I casually chimed in.
"Hey, you guys are talking about this too? I heard something even more mysterious: on those yellow talismans, besides Xiuxiu's name, there's also a man's birth date and time."
He frowned, tapping the rim of the bowl with his fingertips, and suddenly slapped his thigh: "That's right! His surname is Chen, and his name is Chen Yan! He's the little craftsman who lives at the paper craft shop at the end of the street."
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